Amy of Gallifrey
by Mint Pearl Voice
Summary: My name is Amelia Pond. I'm the second-to-last of the Time Lords, and I travel with the Doctor. Most days contain high-speed chases, someone trying to kill us, and almost dying. It's a dangerous, exhilarating existence, and I love it with both my hearts.
1. Chapter 1

"Amelia."

She doesn't just hear his voice in her ears, she hears it in her mind- AmyAmeliaAmyAmelia reverberating and multiplying like church bells. It's like having her headphones turned up too loudly, a sound that's not only painfully intense, but also inescapable. Curled up on the console room's floor, she claps her hands to her ears and rolls away, yowling like an injured cat.

A wave of feeling slams into her. Love. Concern. I'm not the last.

Only it's too much for her. Her newly-restored mind is so raw and sensitive. Get out, she thinks, putting the weight of a thrown brick into her words, pushing with her thoughts-

Light flares behind her eyelids, and she passes out.

Amichorestriameraliana of Gallifrey dreams. It is strange to be sleeping. It is strange to be awake.

It is strange to exist.

Amy wakes to the feeling of cool sheets against her skin. The weight in her head is still there, but not as oppressive.

When she opens her eyes, the Doctor is leaning over her. "How are you feeling?" He bends to kiss her forehead, but stops himself abruptly and straightens back up.

"Odd. What happened?"

He studies her face. "Who are you, Amelia Jessica Pond?"

There's so much subtext there, so much concern and longing, and Amy almost passes out again. She stabs her fingernails into consciousness and clings on tight.

A jumble of thoughts spills towards her. _The pocketwatch_ and _Time Lady_ and _I think we may have been betrothed._

Her second heart, still sore, hiccups, following closely behind the first. "Explain that last one," she murmurs, quirking an eyebrow.

"The famous Amichorestria," he says, observing her with a fond grin.

The name brings dreamlike pictures to her mind's eye, as if she's watching herself. Bright red hair against an orange sky. Dancing under silver trees (and getting yelled at for it, but not caring.)She'd left as soon as she was old enough- not to see the universe, just to leave.

That had only been the start of her adventures.

Amichorestriameraliana. It meant "the flare of light against the horizon at sunset."

"My TARDIS is gone," Amy observes. Sadness slams into her. Without warning, she starts crying: huge, gulping sobs.

A voice that's not a voice whispers under her skin, ethereal yet sardonic: And what am I, chopped space sardines?

"Oh." She hiccups, putting her head in her hands. It's not her sweet, sweet girl, the quirkily crooked-chimney garden shed decorated in flamboyant pastels, but it's enough. "Yeah. That's better."

The Doctor, unused to telepathy, echoes a stray sentence before he can stop himself: I'm glad she loves you.

While the Doctor is still concerned, she sits up and ambushes him with a nose-poke. "Now. What did you mean, betrothed?"

He flails a bit. This regeneration is so much more emotional, every thought flickering over his features, but he's always been awkward. "Our families- and, you know, old custom- merely ceremonial, but-" Okay. And she's in his mental landscape, filtering through his memories, eyeing his thoughts. She knows him better than anyone ever will. All the mindless cruelties, the fatal flaws, the people he's gotten killed- and then she withdraws, her phantom touch like a caress.

"Okay," Amy says quietly, a smile flickering over her expression. "I could get used to this."


	2. Chapter 2

_My name is Amelia Pond, and I'm the second-to-last of the Time Lords._

_When I was a little girl, I had an imaginary friend; the night before my wedding, he came back._

_He told me that the watch my parents had left me wasn't an ordinary pocketwatch- and when I opened it, I was no longer an ordinary human._

_I don't remember who I was on Gallifrey. With seven hundred years of memories lost in transit, I could have been anyone. Now, though, I travel with the Doctor. We share a TARDIS (I'm better at flying it than he is.) Most days contain high-speed chases, someone trying to kill us, and almost dying. It's a dangerous, exhilarating existence, and I love it with both my hearts._

"Subject is experiencing a fear reaction…"

"So they do have emotions after all!"

"They don't have emotions. It's just physiological processes."

"I wonder if the females are always ginger?"

Of course I'm scared, Amy thinks irritably. You idiots blinded me.

She likes her vision. It is very good for looking at things she likes, like strawberry ice cream and her fencing foil. It is also extremely good for keeping Weeping Angels stationary.

Clamping down on her fear to keep it out of her mental voice, she calls to the Doctor: Are you there?

Nothing. Just a weird, tinny echo of her own thoughts. They've shut down her telepathy.

If she takes a big, careful step to the left and stretches out her hand all the way, her fingertips brush a rough stone wall. It's the same thing on the right. The voices seem to emanate from above her, and she pictures fifty-third century academics watching her through a high-up window.

"Check if it's working," a woman says.

A painful electric shock from the large, clunky cuff on her wrist shoots up Amy's arm, making it sore and numb all the way to the shoulder, and she winces before she can stop herself. Her fingers tingle.

"The shock bracelet is operational."

Shock bracelet. What a stupidly pretty name for something so abhorrent.

"Step forward, Amelia Pond."

She scowls, but obeys. The tiles under her bare feet feel smooth and cold.

The scientist speaks in a dispassionate, clinical tone. "Release them."

Time sense is hard to explain, but it feels like someone has tied knots in the timestream, sharp-toothed knots that snag against her arms.

Behind her, stone scrapes against stone.

They're hunting.

"Run."

She doesn't need to be told twice. With one hand on the wall, Amy runs as quickly as she can, taking shallow breaths and alternating heartbeats. They'll catch her eventually, make her open her eyes, make her count, and she can already feel the pressure against the back of her eyeballs-

She runs forehead-first into a wall, stifling a moan at the jarring impact. It makes her dizzy, and she'll have a nasty bump on her head if she survives. Reflexively, she staggers back a few steps, trying to find the wall-

But where's the wall? She's at an intersection, and even extending her arms as far as they can go and turning in a circle doesn't give her any clues as to which way to go. Clamping down on a whimper, she tries to take deep breaths, but fails.

Stone against stone-

She takes a tentative step forward and collides with something soft.

It's all right, the Doctor's voice echoes in her mind, surrounded by a low ringing as if they're underwater, His hand on her shoulder guides her into a faltering half-step towards safety. Nuzzling against his chest, she buries her awareness in his subconscious: _My Amelia, my bright and brilliant Amy-Amelia._

Above, the scientists are beginning to argue over whose fault it is.

"Hello," the Doctor calls up to them, and the noise stops abruptly, as if someone's pressed a Mute button.

A crabby female voice comes over the PA system. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I think the question to be asked here is what do you think you're doing." The Doctor doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't need to. Cold menace waits to erupt through his tone; Amy feels shivery and mesmerized simultaneously, like she's watching a thunderstorm from her window. He continues: "You wanted to study a Time Lord, so you kidnapped one while she was sleeping. Even the city's gangs treat the Hammock Trees as neutral territory. Then, in full and deliberate violation of the Shadow Proclamation, you injected her with twice the maximum allowable dose of fear serum- and played a tape of Weeping Angel noises in the background to see how she'd react. But you wouldn't care if she died of fright, because it's just a physiological reaction." He takes a deliberate breath; when he speaks again, his tone is almost pleasant, almost light. "I suppose you've all finished your drinks?"

Breath catches in a scientist's throat. "Fear serum…"

"Well, yes. But it's only a third of the dose you gave my Amelia, so some of you may very well survive. And if you don't, it'll just be a whatsit, a physiological reaction." A pause. "Come along, Pond," the Doctor murmurs to Amelia, and covers her ears to block out the screams.

Even in the TARDIS, where blurry Impressionist outlines of shapes and colors compensate for her nonexistent vision, Amy still worries that Weeping Angels are following them, and she can't catch her breath. Her hearts stutter over each other. "Doctor?" she murmurs, leaning heavily on the console. The room is a blur of contrasting golden glows. Even though she's removed the shock bracelet, her wrist still feels sore.

"Yes?"

"I'm still scared."

Then his long fingers are at her wrist- cold for a human's, but warm by Time Lord standards. Shaking, her eyes watering with the effort of not blinking, she lets him guide her. The bed in her (well, sort of their) room had a comfortingly soft mattress and springs that creaked when she collapsed onto it. A thick quilt moved over her shoulders. Her (their, and thinking of it as theirs made her forget her fear for a moment) room, with dark blue walls and a string of lights woven into the bed's headboard. No Angels. Not here, anyway. Not yet-

She curls up into a ball, whimpering, and the springs creak again when the Doctor lies down next to her, his face inches away from hers.

"Hey. Amy. Look at me."

Her vision is still blurry, but she focuses on his eyes. Up close, they seem enormous.

"So all the tension is just sort of melting away from your body- it's rubbish, you don't need it, there's nothing to be scared of, you can poof it somewhere else- and nothing hurts anywhere, and you feel fine. Fantastic. Because you're safe, perfectly safe. Amelia in the TARDIS with the Doctor, and you've even got a blanket! It's a nice blanket, very warm and cozy. And blankets are cool."

Even though her chest still hurts, Amelia giggles. This is her favorite part of psychic first aid- the warm, relaxed feeling tingling down to her fingertips. Her body feels limp in a good way.

"Just… breathe. Nice, deep breaths. You'll be fine, Amelia."

For a moment, the tension in her shoulders eases, and she yawns unexpectedly, a small, kittenish sound.

The Doctor's concentration wavers-

Amy's eyes widen in terror. The Angels- I'm going to die- "Doctor, they're here. In the TARDIS." She stares at empty air, intent and terrified.

This is what he hates about fear serum. It can make brave, intelligent people die of fright in their own living rooms, just from what they think they're seeing. Part of him is amazed that Amy has even lasted this long- but then again, he's reminded of her extraordinary bravery pretty much every day.

And nothing bad will happen to her if he can help it.

He strokes her hair gently. "Amelia. Do you trust me?"

"Yeah, but-"

"I need you to take out the 'but' part for five minutes. The TARDIS interior is in a state of temporal grace, you know that. Five minutes. Not even twenty minutes, five minutes. Please."

On instinct, he circles a thumb over the inside of her wrist- and momentarily forgets to breathe. Her two heartbeats are a constant pounding, with not even a nanosecond's pause between pulses. Any faster and her system won't be able to handle it.

He's seen good people die from having their hearts explode. It's not pretty.

"Please, Amelia," the Doctor begs. "Five minutes. That's all."

She nods, shaking. "All right."

No time for words. He presses his forehead to hers and closes his eyes.

So it's just us (holding hands and running and laughing,) safe under our blanket (Amy's favorite flannel shock blanket, the marshmallow-thick quilt they'd shared in Elizabethan England, blanket forts in the blanket fort room, the big blue comforter-) and nothing (not Daleks, not Weeping Angels, not Gallifrey shattering- I've got you, you're all right, the Raggedy Doctor and Amelia-) nothing (you're here, I'm here, you're safe) can alter that.

Breathe, Amelia. Stay with me.

Her pulse becomes faster and faster-

And then she takes a deep, slow, shaky breath. Her pulse is normalizing.

The Doctor and Amy open their eyes simultaneously. For a few minutes, they just stare at each other with goofy smiles.

"I need to learn how to do that," Amy says.

"Do what?"

"That thing where you get inside my head and fix things. I feel like I've just had a warm bubble bath-" Her smile turns mischievous. "-or an orgasm."

Yep. Normal Amelia is back online. "You can have both," he promises her. Amy always reacts resiliently to danger- so resiliently, in fact, that she generally responds by straddling him over the console. "Simultaneously, if you want."

She wriggles towards them. "What, is there a Planet of the Bubble Baths or something?"

"No, but there is a public baths asteroid in the 51st century. It's a big universe."

Drunk on a cocktail of relief, exhaustion, and adrenalin, she gives him a playful nudge. "I want a fifty-first century bubble bath. And an orgy. In a bubble bath." Her eyes widen. "An orgy bath." This seems like the most hilarious thing ever, and it sends Amy into a giggle fit.

He pokes her nose. "No, you're taking a nap first. I want every bit of that fear serum metabolized before I let you off the TARDIS."

"I don't need a nap," Amy protests, trying to keep her eyes open. A loud yawn ruins the effect of her words. "Okay, fine," she says, yawning again. "And then we can go to the bubble planet?"

"Bubble planet indeed."

Curling up in the Doctor's arms, Amelia feels safe enough to close her eyes and relinquish consciousness.


	3. Chapter 3

_My name is Amelia Pond, and I'm the second-to-last of the Time Lords. _

_When I was a little girl, I had an imaginary friend; the night before my wedding, he came back. _

_He told me that the watch my parents had left me wasn't an ordinary pocketwatch- and when I opened it, I was no longer an ordinary human._

_I don't remember who I was on Gallifrey. With seven hundred years of memories lost in transit, I could have been anyone. Now, though, I travel with the Doctor. We share a TARDIS (I'm better at flying it than he is.) Most days contain high-speed chases, someone trying to kill us, and almost dying. It's a dangerous, exhilarating existence, and I love it with both my hearts. _

Amy is finally off the crutches, and the Doctor is finally out of his healing coma; Amy would like to keep it that way for at least twenty-four hours. She always notices the Doctor's stamina, because that man has no idea of his own limitations when he's injured (he would climb Mount Everest with a sprained ankle and the Atraxian pinkeye if she let him) and he still can't make it across the console room without pausing for breath.

So Amy whispers to the TARDIS, and the TARDIS keeps her doors closed for the day.

This is what Amelia and the Doctor do when they're not adventuring:

They sit in the sunny kitchen closest to Amy's room, which has cheerful red crockery and looks stolen from a farmhouse, and drink tea. Green tea with a spoonful of honey swirled in for Amelia; peach-mango herbal with half a teacup's worth of sugar in the bottom of the cup for the Doctor.

They play a 30th-century card game, but it's more like mental hide-and-seek, because they both cheat by trying to read each other's thoughts. Amy has so much telepathic power it almost scares her, but the Doctor is brilliant at shielding. Between one turned-over card and the next, she slips into his mental landscape; finding herself on the outskirts, she climbs a silver tree, tries to burrow under a smooth metal barrier, blasts the barrier with the mental equivalent of a machine gun-

Uh-oh. Her own defenses are suffering, and the Doctor will be able to find out that she doesn't actually have two aces. She flings up a ring of flames, shatters parts of the ground, loath to do anything that would hurt him but determined to win-

And then, right before he reaches her memory-projections, Amy sends him a thought. One small, simple thought.

"I'm not wearing any underwear."

He makes an 'eep!' noise and drops his cards. Smirking, Amy leans forward to peer at them. "One three, two fours, and a five. Yep, you'd have lost this round."

The Doctor runs a hand through his hair, trying to regain his composure. "Amelia, you wouldn't be able to defend against a hostile arachnotelepath by informing her that you have no knickers on."

She purses her lips. "I think I'd at least try."

He shuffles the cards for a long moment before looking back at her. "Do you actually have no knickers on?"

"I don't know, Doctor," she breathes into his ear. "Why don't you find out?"

They play 52-Pickup two hours later.

In the cozy old armchair in the library- the one below the giant curly waterslide, but next to the Gallifreyan picture books- the Doctor and Amelia lean on each other and take turns reading aloud, simultaneously carrying on a mental conversation in fast, slangy Gallifreyan:

"Sir Arthur Conan Doyle human; visceral/emotional contempt, intellectual admiration is past-him, present-me, from a subjective standpoint; hasn be-had-ing such a troll."

"Did I tell you informal-semiformal form; combination of with "someone whose mental landscape is as familiar to you as your own" and "someone who I quite enjoy kissing," tinged with the warm sunset glow of admiration that I met objective-vortex-willhad have been meeting pastmet him once?"

Her eyes widen, and she slips into English. "No way."

"Oh, yes. I told him, 'You seem like a clever bloke- you should write that detective series you keep talking about.' And I didn't even know who he was!"

Amy giggles.

They decide to bake an apple pie.

They ignore the labels on the bags and accidentally use salt instead of sugar.

They throw the batter into the compost heap.

The Doctor dips a ladle into the sugar bag and licks the white crystals with a catlike tongue. Amy has a smudge of flour on her nose.

They try again.

They get into a debate over which galaxies have the best apple pies. There is flailing and shouting and diagrams drawn in flour.

The pie burns.

They order takeout.

Amy works on her latest painting- the blossoming of a nebula. The Doctor, leaning on an enormous pillow, makes suggestions: "You should have more purple-y bits."

She snorts and flicks paint in his direction. Her steady-handed concentration summons the stars.

A few hours later, the Doctor starts yawning. As if trying to banish tiredness through sheer force of will, he springs to his feet. "Amelia! Let's go bowling. Or clubbing- or, I know, both! Bowling clubs. Bowl-clubbing. I'm sure they have those-" His right knee, the one that got bashed in with an actual club a few days ago, wobbles, and he drunk-giraffe staggers into Amelia.

"Bed, you," she admonishes .

This incarnation is clumsy, callous, dismissive, and unpleasant to be around- hell, unpleasant to be- so the fact that Amichorestriameraliana actually cares about him is a never-ending source of amazement. He can barely comprehend the fact. So instead of thinking, he rests his head on her shoulder and lets her lead him.

They're shedding clothing before they even hit the bed, Amy leading the Doctor backwards even as she slides his shirt off. The always-noisy mattress creaks under their combined weight. Soft, slow kisses banish the ghosts of injuries and nightmares.

Skin-to-skin contact brings their mental landscapes closer together, and Amy isn't sure if the safe, comforted feeling settling in her hearts comes from her own mind or from the Doctor's.

Without human occupants, the TARDIS tends to adopt a normal 28-hour day; four hours later, the two Gallifreyans drift to the surface of sleep and emerge, blinking, into the morning. As usual, they smile at each other like love-addled doofuses.

"Morning, you," the Doctor mumbles.

Amy stretches, rolling her shoulders and arching her back. "G'morning."

"Ready for another adventure?"

She grins. "Yep."

In a moment, they'll kick the sheets off and tug on clothes, grab a quick breakfast, don their coats. But until the moment passes, they're content to lie tangled under the blanket, enjoying a final moment of domesticity before beginning their day.


	4. Chapter 4

The Doctor taught Amy how to organize her mind- as soon as her captors begin drawing blood, she retreats inside herself. She's set up a subroutine for this sort of thing. Subroutine!Amy will claim that she knows nothing, spout irrelevant information, plead for the torture to stop; Amy herself has a hideaway.

It's based on Aruba in the 1300s (before the tourists arrive.)

So Amy swims in blue-turquoise water that's as warm as a bathtub, impossibly clear, and almost waveless. She imagines up a terrycloth towel tucked around her hips like a sarong and pictures her hair dry. She conjures up a bucket with her thoughts, fills it with a mixture of water and sand, and builds a drip castle. Then her knee throbs unexpectedly, and the way sand grains scrape against her foot makes her want to curl up in a little ball and cry. No. Her face set in a determined frown, Amy imagines walls of impenetratable crystal around the horizon, strengthening them over and over until the pain fades. After finishing her sandcastle, she imagines another towel (silk this time? Yes, silk. Waterproof silk.) and, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her skin, listens to the almost-waves.

(The Doctor's eyes blaze with the dark fire of anger. He seems even less human than usual. "I have seen magnificent kindness from your species, and I have seen more cruelty than I'd like. What do you think I'm in the mood for- and what do you suppose I have just encountered?"

"We were just doing our jobs-"

"Do you really think you deserve to live? 'Just doing our jobs.' Do you have any idea how many atrocities that phrase has been used to justify?" He picks up the implement that they'd used to tear out Amelia's fingernails. "Why, I've half a mind to-"

Amy shifts a little, makes a soft, pained noise in the back of her throat. "I know who you are, Doctor," she'd say if she were awake. "You're not cruel."

All at once, the anger drains out of him. "Go," he says softly, putting the implement back down. "Before I change my mind."

They don't need to be told twice.

And he goes to her, strokes her forehead. "Hello, Amelia. I'm here.")

I'm here.

Those two words tug Amy out of her mind and up to the surface. She blinks under fluorescent lights. "Doctor?" Her voice is hoarse and raspy; she supposes that the subroutine was screaming.

"It's me. I'm sorry I took so long to find you." As per the planet's warm weather, he's wearing a tan linen suit. "I infiltrated the govenor's office, stole confidential documents, and took them back to the queen of his home planet. She didn't even know that the planet had native inhabitants, can you believe it? Anyway, they're currently working out an arrangement resulting in home rule with mutual economic benefits. One of the stipulations of the peace treaty was that I'd get to rescue you." He's unfastening the manacles, petting her hair.

"I think the TARDIS infirmary would be the best place for me right now- save the local medical supplies for the non-Gallifreyans, yeah?" Gods, her voice sounds croaky.

He nods crisply, not quite meeting her eyes. "Right."

"Well, then, after you." She extends a hand, and that's when she sees it.

Her fingernails are gone.

Her fingernails are gone, and only bloody skin remains.

In response to her involuntary gasp, the Doctor leans a little too heavily on a nearby table, making the metal rattle. Amy's eyes are drawn to what's on top of it- something that looks like a pair of pliers, and a small pile of what resembles the cheap fake nails she used to buy from the corner store as a kid in Leadworth, only they're covered in blood instead of adhesive glue, and that's when she realizes how sharply her fingers ache. "My fingernails." She feels angry and sick. "I just painted them this morning. Lavender grey, my favorite color. They took my fingernails." She knows that her inability to focus on anything else stems from how her body is just catching up with her brain, but that doesn't make her any less indignant. "I just painted them. My fingernails."

"Right. And if you want to keep your toenails too, we'd better leave. Not everyone seems to have gotten the message about the treaty."

She stumbles to her feet and limps along behind him. There's a deep gash in the heel of her left foot, and the dead, dry skin at its edges pulls painfully when she steps on it, so she ends up putting all her weight on her left pinky toe. Toe/foot. Toe/foot. Ouch/ow-

"I've got you, Amelia. Hang on, I'll carry you-" In a practiced motion, he scoops her up into a fireman's carry, the most efficient way to carry someone over long distances. Amy closes her eyes; it's very reassuring to not have to do anything. She's not sure if she can find the sunlit beach again, so she turns off a few neurons and lets the rhythym of the Doctor's steps lull her.

The TARDIS always seems to know what Amy's thinking. Depending on what she's looking for at the moment, Amy's bedroom is next to any combination of the following:

-a small, cozy kitchen with pastel wallpaper, a kettle that's perpetually full of hot water, and cabinets containing several hundred kinds of tea

-the Doctor's bedroom

-the bathroom with the shell-shaped hot tub

And, in one incident involving an elemental-flame stowaway, a dangerous misunderstanding, and three inches of singed hair:

-the TARDIS swimming pool.

Therefore, a tiny, pretty bathroom, its décor dominated by a cozy armchair and an enormous circular bathtub, is located right off the console room as soon as they enter.

"Amy, are you still conscious?"

She nods, then winces as the muscles in her neck spasm.

For a Gallifreyan, telepathy is as natural as speaking; for an amnesiac former human who only recently discovered her true identity, it's more like a second language. When Amy is exhausted, the Doctor reverts to speech.

"The TARDIS ran you a bath on the way over. Let me know if I can help you undress."

They've been traveling together for roughly five solar years in personal-timeline- give or take six months and twenty-eight days as measured by an Earth calendar due to a TARDIS-piloting accident that left Amy stranded at the universe's largest shopping mall, give or take twelve days due to the way the Doctor had bravely risked his life to stop a quantum leak at a time-travel development facility- and he still asks permission before touching her. It makes Amy feel quite safe, actually.

Amy can't picture undoing the buttons on her cardigan with her dried-blood-encrusted fingers, so she mumbles something affirmative, moves her arms and legs when directed to as the Doctor peels her clothes off as if he's undressing a broken doll.

And then she's in the bathtub.

The green water fizzes against her skin in a way that makes her giggle sleepily, replacing the burning ache in her knees and shoulders with cool contentment. It smells like cucumbers and coconut, with a subtle twist of mint, or maybe green tea. Her favorite. Bubbles caress her shoulders, lifting her hair.

"That's good, Amelia. The more you relax, the sooner you heal- and I shall look after you."

The water turns from clear green to cloudy turquoise to a completely opaque sky blue. Thick warmth envelops her, soothing wherever it touches. It's hot enough to relax her, hot enough to make her feel pampered, but without being hot enough to scald.

Then the liquid glitters like a thousand-faceted crystal, turns transparent, blushes a pretty pink, and she's bathing in rose-scented oil that caresses her skin when she moves. It's making her feel loose-limbed and elegant. Moving almost doesn't hurt now.

When the bath starts bubbling from within, as if internally motivated air jets are stirring it up, Amy giggles happily; watching her, the Doctor smiles. It's water instead of oil now, deepening to a vibrant sunset orange. Churning, it washes every last bit of dried blood from her body and purifies her hair. And then- oh. She's bathing in liquid sunlight; mesmerized, she lifts up her hand, and it shines in her palm, glows as it runs through her fingers- and then "warm" turns to "dry," and she's out in the middle of a sunbeam, an actual bathtub-sized sunbeam that makes her feel incredible. As it dissipates, her hair falls straight and silky over her shoulders.

The Doctor re-enters the room, carrying a ceramic mug of steaming liquid and the fluffiest-looking white bathrobe that Amy's ever encountered. "So- tea and bathrobe."

She sits up slowly, noticing that her body hurts less than it had before. "You know, I would never have known if you hadn't announced it."

The Doctor helps her into the bathrobe and onto the tweedy armchair of comfortable shabbiness. "It'll help you sleep," he pronounces, handing her the mug.

She stares into its depths for a moment, then frowns at him. "Gallifreyan metabolism, remember? Nothing works on us."

"Well, this tea is special." He sits down in the armchair, and Amy schooches over a bit to accommodate him.

She sniffs it before drinking. Oranges, cinnamon… thyme? Curling up against the Doctor, enjoying the comforting warmth of his presence and the steady double beat of his hearts,

"It really is quite extraordinary," he explains. "It can't be used to drug someone nonconsensually, but when there's someone in need of rest and healing, it reacts in a special way with neurotransmitters to produce a unique soporific that…"

When her eyes drift closed, he takes the half-empty mugs from her hands without missing a beat.

Amy spends three days with her injured foot elevated, soaking her hands in basins of healing goo. The Doctor hand-feeds her chocolate cookies and peeled green grapes. He paints for her, following her directions perfectly, as if his hands have replaced her own; kisses her neck as he helps her into a cardigan. The TARDIS treats her like a princess.

And then, finally, she can walk again, use her hands again. The Doctor finds a pair of black gloves made out of something that looks like leather, but isn't. They protect her still-healing hands, they're waterproof, and they work perfectly with the electronic art tablet that she occasionally slips into her messenger bag. She carries a pearl-and-gold cane topped with a polished moonstone sphere; within days, pointing with the cane, twirling the cane, and banging the cane on the floor for emphasis become part of her body language.

They stay for a month to help establish a new local government. Amy works with native artists to create an art therapy center for children whose parents were killed by the occupiers; although offered the chance to design a mural, she demurs, preferring instead to work with the apprentice artists and paint-by-numbers.

Finally, when the Doctor is sure that everything's going to be all right, they head into the TARDIS, carrying all the good-luck gifts they've received from their new friends, waving goodbye to everyone.

"You know, Doctor," Amy says, her Scottish accent rolling over the syllables as she circles the console, "even though my wounds are healing, there are things I can't do as effectively without the use of my hands."

He's slotting levers into place, tapping a flurry of buttons as if they're keys on a piano. "Things? What things?"

She can tell that he registered her words, but not their subtext. "Well…" Her voice drops into the "sultry" register; on his next circuit, when they catch up to each other, she tugs meaningfully on his tie. "Things."

(The Doctor is very distracted from that point onwards. Therefore, they land twenty-five years early, and end up sabotaging-and then preventing- the construction of a gun factory. It's worth it, of course… especially considering Amy's satisfied gait and the bloom of pink in her cheeks.)


End file.
